Preparing London for extreme weather

" Do this summer's catastrophic scenes in Libya, Greece, Spain, Hawaii, Canada, China, India, Italy." All this catastrophic has one rood is corruption and bribery. Just for example, in Libya was flooding, and this is basic physics. Water is always going down the hill, not up easily, to predict what  is going to happen and send water to reservoirs for further use by canals and other waterways. Or is it water ways was cleare from rubbish  ? And fires happen from arson and let it burn and claim on climat  change. Instead  of lookin  after and think ahead. There are so many satellit  technologies now that can predict and send a signal in real time where fire started in small areas and easy to put down for those who really want to work.  

Following the money you will see the truth. Its all about money and power over people.

Mayor of London should be more concerned about the weather related pollution generated in London rather than following pitiful things like ULEZ which is only reduving pollution by small amount and should be concentrating on bigger picture of CO2 and dudt pollution which has more impact on weather.

There are lots of excellent suggestions on here covering many topics. My particular concern is for our precious green spaces, parks and commons which are exploited, used, abused and  damaged for commercial interest. This should stop. We need to give maximum protection to nature, plant many more trees, increase wetland habitat, hedges and wild flower meadows. 

We also need to green up our grey spaces, take up paving slabs on our streets wherever possible and plant for our bees and butterflies.

Watering is key. Local communities should be empowered to green up their streets and take responsibility for nurturing trees and plants. There are far too many dead young trees and dried up planters. 

Ban plastic grass! 

There are lots of comments here about mitigation (reducing emissions of greenhouse gasses, creating carbon sinks) which are great ideas and worth talking about. But this consultation is specifically about resilience / adaptation: preparing ourselves to cope with the extreme weather which is already coming. 

• infrastructure and buildings - new build should be well-insulated to protect them from extreme heat, and also have good anti-flood measures (electrics higher up the wall, that sort of thing). Retrofitting these things when buildings are refurbished. More use of trees, green space as ways of creating shade and lowering temperatures, as well as soaking up water. Stop areas of currently porous land being made impermeable. 
• responses to emergencies - emergency services need better funding, and communities need guidance about what they can do for themselves/each other when an emergency strikes (like flooding) or when there's a prolonged heat event. What are you supposed to do, if you have a condition which makes you vulnerable to extreme heat? Clear guidance. Especially consider those people who move around a lot e.g. students, private renters, recent migrants - they may not know their neighbours or where to go for help or in an emergency. 
• Target support to the most vulnerable / make landlords look after their tenants - e.g. support to retrofit insulation, ventilation, flood-proofing. 

 London needs to invest in being a National PARK City; transforming into a much greener, sponge city and avoiding further development on flood risk areas. 

The current ULEZ scheme is having an impact on air quality and is most welcome. Improved public transport and further investment in active travel infrastructure would help drive emissions down further. Last mile delivery services (including land and aerial drones) would also help.

We need more parks and public green spaces with high streets being prime locations for investment in greener mixed-use spaces bolstering community engagement. 

Londoners need help understanding the entrepreneurial and employment opportunities a greener London can bring. This includes new career guidance, and skills training, alongside investment and funding opportunities. 

London's food network needs realignment to encourage uptake of affordable, seasonal UK produce for all, with an emphasis on plant-based diets. Extra effort must be encouraged by the GLA and the Mayor for the capital's food sector to move to an attractive plant bassed diet. The change will bring environmental benefits boosting biodiversity, improving public health and reducing strain on the cost and losgistics of health services.

The Planning system must also be aligned and policed to deliver biodiversity net gain (+10% minimum), while ensuring all new offices, businesses, and homes meet stringent power and insulation standards, and retaining/recycling water, and reducing hard standing to ameliorate the urban heat Island effect. Vertical gardens (green walls and roofs) will be esential in delivering this. All new roads and road upgrades should include active travel infrastructure and SUDs (swales, rain gardens, etc).

Encouraging accessible community heat and/or power schemes would bring greater resilience for the Capital, and could be developed as a London-wide grid. Tech and smart lighting will play a vital role so free access to digital services would be a great benefit. 

Visitors to the capital are a great source of revenue, and heat waves are currently reducing our appeal, so rewilding in the capital, including the careful conservation of trees in all neighbourhoods is essential. 

Yes lorries need access, but decisions are currently still being taken on a commercial rather than an environmental basis. Could lorry size and shape be improved?

The cooling effect of green spaces of every kind, the way trees produce oxygen, the provision of accessible water in all public spaces, need to be factored into the decision-taking equation. Water in many public buildings (as in the central court at the V& A) could be considered as offering access for all to protected spaces with shade and plants in pots or ideally in the ground. Could this include more council offices? The patterns already exist in some hospitals. Open water improves the environment for the workforce as well as for visitors. It could be encouraged in commercial buildings.

The same applies to rooftop gardens.

Obviously public parks and gardens need more support and investment too. Could they be sponsored by local businesses, who would be credited within the spaces they support?

Here's 10 "starters for 10":

1. Address permeability of surfaces. Impermeable surfaces get hot (contributing to heat island), and cause flash flooding in severe rain. 
2. Water collection. Channelised/culverted river corridors need fundamental redesign to retain water and restore ground water.
3. Shade. Tree (esp. street tree) shade helps retain moisture + cool surfaces. Buried services in streets need to be zoned to permit trees to grow to maturity - not struggle for 15 years and then be replaced.
4. Street Trees should be planted regularly between on-street parallel parking spaces. This will shade roadways, parking and footpaths, without compromising the footpaths. Good footpaths are essential for reducing short car trips.
5. London should develop its own building codes which address insulation and energy efficiency in context of London's climate. 
6. Building Codes should address the reflective glass architecture which reflects radiant heat into the street, and is thermally inefficient.
7. MOL and Greenbelt, parks/green space network, should become a TRUE London National Park - of woodland, heath, grassland, wetland habitats - offering cooling, buffering to extremes of weather, a world class natural and recreational resource, which surrounds the Capital and reaches into the City via corridors such as Thames, Lea, Brent, Colne, Wandle etc.
8. Car parks should be mandated to provide shade/shelter either using solar panels or large/medium trees to achieve a minimum 80% shade within 20 years. This would generate sustainable energy, habitat AND reduce heat island.
9. Flat roofs should be either, (proper) living roof, solar panels or painted white. Rooftop plant should be shaded with solar panels.
10. Extend reach of Tree Protection Orders to better protect existing mature trees.  

At local level, here in Greenwich (and Newham), it's important to rethink the Silvertown tunnel and look at repurposing this scheme to prioritise cyclists. There is a growing fleet of cargo bike business owners who would like to be able to cross here but currently go to Tower Bridge (a long way round). If the Mayor is serious about a transition to cleaner modes of travel and tackling air pollution he must surely review this tunnel. 

Less personal driving – requiring the facilitation of alternates, less consumption of unnecessary items, clarity on future (ie now) domestic heating needs in London’s older housing stock, and so forth, essentially a hard hitting and ongoing communication programme to build greater awareness and promote the personal and organisational changes required and others recommended. This is patently a fast-ticking clock.

Fundamental high profile, high impact change will be required. A seemingly unnecessary new incinerator scheduled to be built in north London would be one place to change direction immediately.   

I don't envy the people who have to make the decisions because the choices we face a stark ... Climate change is happening and at a pace faster than that predicted... difficult choices have to be made.. its a matter of how we can minimise disruption to our lives yet keeping climate change at the fore. National government including the 'opposition' has put the economy and their short term survival before any dramatic green policy changes..... 

I certainly don't have answers but I do know that whomever makes these choices is going to prove unpopular as it will impinge upon the 'freedoms' that people feel are their dues, living in our so called democracy.... Good luck

Essential to retain & protect green spaces & to introduce new ones in urban developments. 

Extend & reinforce network of shady green corridors for pedestrians & increase tree cover in our streets and open spaces. 

Control utility companies from trenching routes that might be used for street trees locations.

Ensure that every development has solar panels, that new roofs face south wherever possible & introduce more green roofs. 

Increase council officer monitoring of completed developments to ensure landsape schemes establish & make it mandatory for developers to include management plans for landscape schemes when making applications. 

Restrict applications for dropped kerbs to ensure street tree cover can be extended and to reduce desire of residents to pave their front gardens. 

Ensure water points are included in every green space to enable watering of new planting by volunteers, in addition to staff.

Since petrol cars give off carbon emissions and electric vehicle require batteries which will in time create other environmental problems such as disposal and sourcing of Lithium we should be significantly reducing the number of cars in London. This could be achieved by limiting each household to one car, either through voluntary persuasion or by a licensing scheme. People will always argue that they need their cars to get to work but in London this is rarely the case. Not only would this help the environment, people should save money and lead healthier lIves. It should also become easier to drive and park on those occasions when you need a car.

This is just another excuse for the Aga Khan to increase taxes on Londoners, I strongly object to the introduction of ULEZ  in a Borough on the outskirts of London. The introduction of Cycle lanes in my Borough are a total waste of space, used by a few, others mow you down on the pavement. Then  these cyclists take their bikes on trains and tubes, where there is no provision for them to be carried.

How is paying taxes going to improve the air quality or improve congestion.

Lots that can be done to help prepare for hotter summers - in particular planting of more street trees to provide more shade to people walking (and shade to homes, reducing heating), provision of more water fountains, provision of shade canopies in playgrounds, more play fountains / 'splash pads' for children to enable cooling in the summer

Planning requirements for new buildings should be required to demonstrate how they intend to cool buildings, ideally using louvres or other external / 'natural' cooling.  Planning restrictions for climate adaptation alternations to existing buildings (e.g. shutters, louvres) should be eased / streamlined

Insulation and better prepare homes for extreme weather events should be a priority as it has impact on health, well  being and ultimately the economic prosperity of the capital and the country. 

Whilst the EU has a clear "Green Recovery Deal" underpinned by a massive scale funding available to all EU member states. All my friends and family in Italy have benefitted from this Green Deal which means that all the retrofitting insulation, heat pump, voltaic roof, fittings and features, windows and doors are almost entirely funded by the deal itself. We here in London are still debating but doing nothing. I only have a small NHS pension so I don't own a car instead, despite my disability I get around on my city bike. Let's remember that Denmark and The Netherland in the sixties and seventies were faced by similar conditions to what we experience now: high fuel costs, high food cost and struggling economies so their governments said to citizen: cycle because is affordable and good for your health. Citizens initially protested but then came along making Denmark and The Netherland cycling and healthier nations. Can we act fast too??? If everyonje is so poor why there are so many expensive cars on the roads? We also need cycling safeguarding.

Government should be doing all they can to prepare. We should already all be driving electric cars, with enough charging points built into our infrastructure, but this hasn’t happened, despite being aware years and years ago of the problems we face.

Sustainability should, by now, be a part of everyday life and all individuals should hold knowledge about what sustainability is and how to achieve it. But I feer that we are a lifetime away from this. Sustainability should be, by now, second nature but the average person knows nothing, has had no education and are fighting against the changes that need to happen. Without education, honest knowledge and understanding of these things people will continue to oppose change.

I am very interested in the issues we all face and am concerned about the future. But I don’t have enough information, as far as I am concerned, government and businesses ‘greenwash’, to appear to be changing for the better, when they are still just about profit. They charge extortionate amounts for plastic bags. Ban them (if they are a problem) this can’t be lead by the public, it has to be lead by government/businesses.

If in curtain circumstances plastic is more sustainable than paper or other materials, tell us and educate us.

Government has access to all the specialists that know what the reality of climate change is. The public relay on information being shared with them. Educate, educate, educate.

 Too little is/has been done, climate change has been an issue for decades, we are in a ridiculous situation and it feels hopeless and stagnant, scary and very very sad. And we wonder why so many young people struggle with mental health problems, take antidepressants and suicide is rife.

The government needs to be responsible and be investing in our countries infrastructure in an honest, sustainable way. 

Companies should be fined for ‘greenwashing’ and made to invest in sustainable activities and produce sustainable only products, from sustainable sources.

Have already commented, but thought I’d  add a little more after reading others comments. 
The survey is about being ready for the damage that’s already been done. 
Totally agree we need to reduce remove carbon emissions.  Insulate, efficiencies, Public transport. Ev take up, what would help here though … is ev cable channels through pavements  Ie companies like gul-e or kerbo. These are expensive at the moment. But I’m sure councils could reduce the costs by making it easier to apply. It means less chargers needed in streets. No need to dig up paths and home charging can be achievable for more people and means access to off peak energy which is the greenest type of  cheap energy. Charging from street lampposts needs to rolled out much quicker ‘ubertricity !!!’
 I liked most people talked of surface flooding drives drains and water companies or con artists by another name. 
Also liked the mention of public transport needing to upgraded to cope in these situations. 
For schools and offices I think whilst aircon is contentious I’ve heard that air source heat pumps can work in summer as airconditioning in summer. Air to air types especially. I feel if the buildings have solar then that’s ok, but better is to have high levels of insulation to reduce those needs. 
Again regulation for future upgrades to businesses especially air con but only if you’ve Solar to go with it Etc. 
I liked the the civil  volunteer groups mentioned as well to help with disasters but better planning and reduction of damage that could be caused Must be the main priority. Then disaster planning. Which I feel there is very little in place. Ie. Warning systems and information on what to do. Who to contact. 
Some have mentioned china, they’re are the biggest installers of solar panels and wind farms in the world. If we sort ourselves out then we can show them a better way. A cheaper way. They might see the benefits. 

Finally  a way  to check up on councils/government resilience plans.